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Monday, March 24, 2014

The Church: A Garden Club Which Does Woodworking

A parable:

Once there was a gardening club.The members loved The Garden Club so much that once a week
they gathered together to do woodworking.Amidst the hammering and sawing, someone would read from the Gardening
Book.Garden Club members loved to
read the Gardening Book in order to learn more about woodworking. Sometimes
they would notice the Gardening Book contained a lot about gardening and they
would all nod sagely before continuing with their hammering and sawing.

Sometimes outsiders would question why
the club was called the Garden Club when really what they did was
woodworking.Then, the members would
draw attention to portions of the Gardening Book which mention bird houses and fences.How could one have such things if one
did not engage in woodworking?Furthermore, the members were quick to point out, some of them did some
gardening during the rest of the week and they all liked the idea of
gardening.Occasionally a
difficult member of the Gardening Club would mention the club might be more
appealing to gardeners and more importantly might make the world a more
beautiful place if they actually did some gardening.The other members would then grumble about some gardeners
having lousy priorities since they refused to set aside time for
woodworking.Often someone would
yell out, “If we do gardening people will think we are nothing more than
horticulturists!”The hammering
and sawing would quickly recommence.And so The Garden Club remained a club centered around woodworking.

Key to unlocking this fabulously mysterious parable:

The Garden Club=Christian Church

Gardening Book = the Bible

Woodworking=worship and right beliefs

Gardening=serving and standing with neighbors, the poor, the outcast/following Jesus

I have
been reading Nadia Bolz-Weber’s book, “Pastrix” and when reading what she has
to say about liturgy I was reminded how powerful and meaningful worship can
be.How can I be against something
which is sometimes so beautiful?Then it dawned on me: focusing on worship almost exclusively is like
eating candy and calling yourself a vegetarian or…or... or…then the above
parable began to take shape.I am not against
worship.It can be beautiful.But it should not define followers of
Jesus.